Patrick O'Brian: The Thirteen Gun Salute

Yet rather more of them, particularly the two- and two-and-a-half-share hands, had listened to their captain's advice. Captam Aubrey was remarkably good at giving financial advice: he cried up thrift, caution, small returns (the Navy Five per cents were the very utmost limit of what he would approve), perpetual vigilance and strict economy. It was known through- out the maritime world that although Lucky Jack Aubrey had quite certainly earned his nickname at sea, making at least three fortunes before the last astonishing stroke, he had also been spectacularly unfortunate by land. At certain periods he had been extravagant, maintaining a racing stable and cutting a figure at Brooks's; at others he had been credulous, believing in projectors and their schemes; and generally speaking disaster had attended upon his undertakings. It was therefore perfectly clear to an objective eye that no one had less right to give advice. Yet among seamen, Aubrey's handling of a ship, his behaviour when he brought that ship into action, his list of victories and his list of prizes outweighed a certain want of practical management; and his words, always very kindly intended, always adapted to the means and the understanding of his hearers, had great influence, rather as Tom Cribb's on a point of foreign politics might have done, and some of the Surprises, all of them married men with children, retired from the sea. But none, except a sailmaker's mate who was married to the daughter and sole heiress of a carrier, had retired very far, and the seven new inns or ale-houses called the Aubrey Arms and with those arms (azure, three sheep's heads erased, proper) on their sign-posts, now scattered about the country were all within easy reach of the strand - and, it must be admitted, of the publican's smuggling brothers, uncles, cousins, nephews, and even God preserve us grandchildren. Yet the prudent and uxorious amounted to so small a proportion of the frigate's people that even when they were added to the paupers they hardly took away from the second anomaly, which was that the Surprise was also a ship largely filled with men who were sailing away under no compulsion on the part of authority, poverty ot want of employment, men who had considerable sums at home and who were setting out on this prodigious voyage for something more - something less definite than gain and more important. With such a multiplicity of characters the 'more' was necessarily somewhat shapeless, though some obvious part of it had to do with going far foreign, seeing new countries, cutting capers on Tom Tiddler's ground and perhaps picking up gold and silver, sailing in a happy ship, sailing away in war-time from the strong likelihood of eventual impressment and forced service under officers of a very different character - it was not the fighting that the Shelmerstonians disliked, nor even the hard lying and short commons, but the often unnecessarily harsh discipline, the hazing, the starting and sometimes the direct oppression. And although there was not a heart that did not delight in spoil - a sack of doubloons would make any man chuckle - a real and vehement desire for it was rarely a prime ingredient.

There were some men of course whose 'more' was eminently clear. Jack Aubrey did not give a damn for money: his sole aim was reinstatement in the service and restoration to the list of post-captains in the Royal Navy, with his former seniority if possible. All this had been semi-officially and conditionally offered after his cutting-out of the Diane; and it had been absolutely promised him after his election to parliament, or rather after his cousin had given him the pocket borough of Milford. But at last, at very long last, Aubrey had grown less sanguine, less confident in promises; his brief acquaintance with the House and his fellow-members had told him a great deal about the fragility of the administration and therefore of its undertakings; he did not for a moment doubt the present First Lord's word, but he knew that in the event of a change of ministry this word, this purely personal, verbal word, would not necessarily bind Melville's successor. He also knew - and this was a fresh though not entirely unforeseen development - that the Regent was by no means favourable to him. It arose partly from the fact that the Regent's naval brother, the Duke of Clarence, was both one of Jack's most fervent advocates and one of the Regent's most outspoken critics - the brothers were scarcely on speaking-terms; furthermore several strongly independent Whiggish admirals also said that Aubrey absolutely must be reinstated; and then by way of completing things Jack had made one of his rare adventures into literature. On hearing that in the course of a drawing-room the Regent's mistress Lady Hertford had been rude to Diana Maturin, his cousin by marriage and his best friend's wife, he said angrily and in rather too public a place, 'Birds of a feather, birds of a feather; fowl in their own nest, all tarred with the same brush. Dryden put it very well, speaking of another great man's mistresses: he said - he said - I have it. He said false, foolish, old, ill-natured and ill-bred. Aye: there's no beating Dryden. False, foolish, old, ill-natured and ill-bred - nothing more ill-bred than being uncivil at a levee or a drawing-room.'

It was his former shipmate Mowett who had told him the quotation and it was his present shipmate Maturin who told him that the words had reached the royal ear. Stephen had the news from his friend and close colleague Sir Joseph Blaine, the head of naval intelligence, who added, 'If we could tell who was in the backgammon room at the time, we might possibly be able to put a name on the worm in the apple.'

A worm in the apple there was. Some time before this two singularly well-placed French agents, Ledward of the Treasury and Wray of the Admiralty, had concocted a charge against Jack Aubrey: with Wray's intimate knowledge of naval officers' movements and Ledward's of the criminal world the accusation was so cleverly framed that it convinced a Guildhall jury and Jack was found guilty of rigging the Stock Exchange, fined, pilloried, and of course struck off the Navy List. The charge was false and its falsity was proved by a discontented enemy agent who betrayed Ledward and his friend, giving unquestionable evidence of their treachery; yet neither had been arrested, and now both were known to be in Paris. Blaine was sure they had been protected by some remarkably influential friend, probably some very high permanent official: this man (or possibly this small group of men), whose identity neither Blaine nor his colleagues could make out in spite of all their pains, was still active, still potentially very dangerous.

And since at beast part of Wray's plot had been directed against Aubrey out of personal malevolence, it was almost certainly this shadowy protector's influence that lay behind the odd official delay and reluctance that had met any proposals in favour of the now obviously innocent Aubrey up until the moment he became a member of parliament.

'The worm is still with us,' said Blaine. 'He must be reasonably conspicuous from his office; it is very probable that he has an unorthodox attachment for Wray; and if very delicate enquiries tell us that a distinguished man with ambiguous tastes - and even the greatest care cannot conceal these things from servants - was in the backgammon room on Friday, why, then, we may pin him at last.'

'Certainly,' said Stephen, 'if we accept that the only man present willing to carry ill-natured gossip was the worm in question.'

'Very true,' said Blaine. 'Still, it might give some slight hint or indication. But in any case, I do beg you will urge our friend to be discreet. Tell him that although the First Lord is an honourable man the present complexion of affairs is such that he may be physically incapable of fulfilling his promises; he may be excluded from the Admiralty. Tell Aubrey to be very cautious in his certainties; and tell him to put to sea as soon as ever he can. Tell him that quite apart from obvious considerations there are obscure forces that may do him harm.'